


A Bitter God to Follow

by Bakcheia



Category: Thursday's Children - Rumer Godden
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakcheia/pseuds/Bakcheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everybody is in love with Yuri, including Yuri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bitter God to Follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alasse_Irena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alasse_Irena/gifts).



> Minor warnings for mention of underage sexuality but nothing the book itself doesn't have.

 

It is almost 9:30 and Crystal has very little time. In a moment the other girls will come trampling up the stairs, wanting to brush their teeth and comb their hair, crowding about her in front of the mirror to check for new spots.

Quickly, before she can lose courage, she undoes the four pearl buttons that fasten the neck of her nightdress and lets it puddle on the floor at her feet.

It is not a good mirror, not for a Queen's Chase dancer, who sees herself fully reflected in shining glass walls for hours at a time, but it is good enough to spit back the body of the child which stands in front of it.

Crystal stares doubtfully at it, then tries tilting her hips and pulling a heavy hank of hair forward, so that it lies soft and seductive over her shoulders - but the body in the mirror stubbornly remains that of a young girl.

Barely even the body of a young girl, Crystal realises, with sudden disgust, for the constant practice has eaten off her fat and toughened her muscles, till it seems as if everything soft and womanly that she should have had, has been danced away.

 _I look like a boy._ Then, more terribly, _I look like Doone._

She tries to imagine Yuri standing behind her with one hand laid gently on her naked belly and his head tilted to smell her hair. For a moment it is wonderful; Yuri - graceful, powerful, _beautiful_ Yuri – pressed all along the length of her and then she remembers how much taller he is than her and how far down he would have to stoop...

Ennis Glyn, she thinks bitterly, is five foot nine. She has seen her dance with Yuri and afterwards she heard Doone telling one of his little friends how perfectly matched he thought they were. No one would say she and Yuri were perfectly matched, not unless they'd been dancing a comedy.

 _He won't even look at me - not like I want him to. It will be Miss Glyn he looks at. Or Anthea._ Anthea was a sixth form girl with dancing eyes and feet whom Crystal had previously considered an inspiration but now seemed to exist for the sole purpose of being a torment to her.

There is a drumming of footsteps on the stairs below her and Crystal freezes at the idea of being caught parading naked in front of the mirror by a half dozen other girls. She fumbles hurridly with her nightgown; there is a wet patch on the back where she has dropped it in a puddle and it sticks unpleasntly to her skin and won't pull up. A button pings into the sink in her rush to fasten it.

 _Ma can sew it back on,_ she thinks, slipping the last one into place and grabbing for her hairbrush.

She is only just in time, Galina comes clattering into the bathroom, talking excitedly with (or perhaps, more accurately, _at)_ Ruth, who is following at a more sedate pace.

“Can you imagine? Yuri Koszorz will be teaching us tomorrow! _Yuri Koszorz!_ ” Galina's voice thrums and she breaks several rules by rising _en pointe_ on the slippery tiles, carried away by enthusiasm.

Crystal pretends to be absorbed in brushing her hair but all the while she feels the name reverberating inside her as if her heart is a great golden bell.

“He's just a dancer, not Jesus,” says Ruth, who is becoming more than a little impatient with Galina's theatrics, “and besides, I overheard Miss McKenzie saying -” but here she is cut off by Galina's explosion of indignation.

“Just a dancer! Yuri Koszorz – just a dancer!” and Galina seethes for a moment, before her curiosity overcomes her anger.

“What _did_ Miss McKenzie say about Yuri?”

But by then Ruth has thought better of it.

“Nothing,” she says, quickly, “nothing important, anyway.”

“You're a mean cat, Ruth, to know something about Yuri and not tell.” And then, with a wicked grin, remembering, “I saw you kissing that poster of him they had in the Royal, so you needn't act so high and mighty with _me,_ Ruth Sherrin”

Ruth, usually so composed, blushes to the roots of her hair and Crystal, who would never normally miss a chance to pick at her, surprises everybody by ignoring the whole exchange.

 _Yuri._ Her whole body rings with it and there doesn't seem room for anything else. _Yuri, Yuri, Yuri._

The knowledge of her hard boys' body grips her with a sort of pain.

“Is everything alright, Crystal?”

Ruth's voice makes her start and as she looks up she meets the gaze of her reflection for the second time. She had been on the edge of crying and her blue eyes, brimming with tears, look luminous and almost violet under the flickering yellow strip light.

 _I'm prettier than Ruth,_ she thinks, fiercely, _even if she is a neater dancer than me. I'm the prettiest girl in my year, I've heard people saying so. In five years time_ , _I will look magnificent and Miss Glyn will have retired and Anthea will be old, old, old!_ Then _we'll see._

And Crystal tosses her golden curls with a sudden, sharp thrill of satisfaction.

“I'm fine” she said, “Just caught my brush on a knot”

She does not think of Yuri growing old, of Yuri Koszorz retiring.

Yuri Koszorz will dance forever.

 

Anthea wakes, suddenly, at what she guesses to be about 3:30am . If she had been on stage there would have been a sonorous church bell to chime the hour and tell the waiting audience what time it was and whether they could expect a magical, moonlight scene - washed through with blue light – or a dawn dance with a touch of the comedic about it. As it is she has to guess, something she considers to be one of the more frustrating aspects of real life.

Yuri has turned from her during the night. If Anthea were to walk into the room just now she would be able to see the strong lines of his face, softened in sleep and the way one out flung arm cradled a pillow to his chest; a habit born from sharing a bed with two brothers in childhood.

As she is lying down next to him she can only see his back, though this should have been enough to please anybody. Yuri's back is as splendid as the rest of him is, almost as if somebody had made it that way on purpose, with none of the usual imperfections that mark out human flesh from bronze or marble. It is the sort of back a lovelorn Emperor would have ordered carved, in memory of his little god of a lover.

Something about the thought displeases her; his nudity is too sculptured to feel intimate, too universal to belong to any one person. He really could have been Antinous, lying still and sodden on the banks of the Nile, whilst Hadrian grieved and tore out his beard, refusing to accept that most final of partings.

She tells herself that this is an inevitable part of dating a successful principle, that one could believe him to be almost anybody. It is only natural and right that, even as his pale flesh recalled so perfectly Hadrian's lost love, he was still only a scattering of petals away from being the Rose Spirit. Hasn't she watched Yuri make that leap a dozen times in the simple little stunt ballet? The audience loves it because of its charm and happy ending but Anthea had always wondered how the girl felt, seeing that little piece of magic leave her life, even if it left so beautifully.

And of course she confuses his back with that of Siegfried, as he turns from his swan lover at the window. Anthea has not yet danced Odette but she has seen Yuri, dancing the Prince with Ennis Glyn and lifting her as if she really had the light, hollow bones of a bird, looking at her as if he had never loved anyone else, or ever would again.

It is a sudden desperation, and not anger, that makes Anthea raise her hand and bring it down in a sharp slap on Yuri's shoulder.

He startles awake almost before she can remove her hand and certainly would have caught her at it if they had been lying face to face. As it is she only just has time to compose her features into unconscious innocence before he turns to stare at her.

Anthea lies limp and pretends to be sleeping, Aurora waiting for the kiss of her prince. She feels the bed shift as he sits up and hears the faint scuffing of skin on skin as he rubs his smarting shoulder. Even with her eyes closed Anthea knows how he will look. She waits a moment longer, then allows herself to stir, keeping her limbs heavy and pliant and her eyes shut.

“Yuri?” Her voice slurs perfectly over the first syllable. When she retires, she might become an actress and make Yuri jealous by kissing film stars, as he will make her jealous by dancing with other girls.

“A nightmare, I think” he sounds uneasy and a little scared. It is the first time she has heard him sound either of those things and Anthea decides that she rather likes it.

She makes a reassuring cooing noise, shifting so that her breast lies bare and inviting and Yuri takes the hint and settles there, the inverse of how they had fallen asleep that night.

She waits until she can feel his breath coming in even puffs against her collar bone before she opens her eyes. He has fallen quickly back to sleep and will likely not remember any of this come the morning - but Anthea fixes every detail of it in her mind until it is hers forever. The way the skin has reddened over his shoulder and the faint pricking of new stubble over his jawline. There is a purpling bruise just below his sternum and another, smaller one, just above his wrist. Two of his fingernails have been bitten down till they are almost bloody. 

Cradled against her chest he lies transformed, as thoroughly if a spell had been lifted, no longer drowned Antinous, or a wilting rose, nor disloyal Siegfried, he is her own dear Yuri, hers alone, and she has not lost him yet.

 

 

Yuri descended on Queen's Chase the next morning “like Zeus descending from Mount Olympus” as Miss Challoner said, later. This was not strictly true, for of course he came by taxi as any other mortal might - but his arrival created so much stir that he might as well have travelled by thunderbolt, or alighted on the rooftop in the form of a great eagle.

“You sound like you don't quite approve of him” Mamzelly said to Mrs Challoner, in a puzzled sort of way. They were alone in Mrs Challoner's study, Yuri having swept out after only a few minutes, insisting on seeing the children who might be dancing for him. Mamzelly had been hoping to make arrangements with him for the summer school, which would need a great deal of planning but though she was disappointed by his swift exit, it was a sweet, schoolgirlish disappointment, with no resentment in it.

He had greeted them both by kissing their hands and he had done it in a way that made her feel a princess as much as it made him look like a prince.

Mrs Challoner seemed to be thinking for a moment before answering.

“He is a good dancer,” she said, slowly, “a very good dancer - possibly the best I have ever seen - and for him to come here and organise a dance for the children, well, it is a great opportunity for them. I am very thankful. But...” and here she paused, already feeling a little unfair.

“But?” Mamzelly leaned forward, incredulous that there could be such a thing as a 'but' about Yuri.

“But I don't entirely trust him. He is not careful with the children and sometimes...” she took a breath and plunged ahead. “Sometimes I'm not entirely sure that I like him.”

Mamzelly gaped at her, as much surprised as if she had confessed to finding Tchaikovsky old fashioned and dull.

_Mrs Challoner - not like Yuri? Not like Yuri, who danced so beautifully? Not like Yuri, who would work all summer long for the Polish charities?_

“But, he is so charming...” she floundered, looking for a word to encompass the whole glory of being in Yuri's presence and picking better than she knew.

Mrs Challoner rubbed the back of her hand, where the phantom press of soft lips still lingered and frowned.

“Yes” she said. “He is.”

 

There is a girl in the class, a girl with golden hair and pale, pampered skin and she looks nothing like him and isn't half the dancer he is, but something about her reminds him of himself nonetheless. It is her eyes, he realises, eventually, or rather not the eyes themselves but the way she looks at him and suddenly it is as if he is eight years old again, watching Loda Halama dancing on a grainy cinema screen thousands of miles away from Queens Chase and the busy London streets.

It had been a romance - one of the old fashioned kind - and boys around him had hooted and made kissing noises while he was filling up with a love so intense that he broke out into a heavy sweat, as if his love had been a killing fever.

He must have loved the dancing much more than her, to have forgotten her so easily and for so long.

He smiles at the girl – _Crystal? He must be sure to learn all of their names, their feelings will be hurt if they are not remembered –_ grateful for having that little moment returned to him. She smiles back but her face is as white as her teeth and she shivers under his gaze.

She is not the only one to do so, either. One girl turns almost scarlet when he faults her stance, though he takes pains to be very gentle about it (later, when he knows what they can take, he will be harsher) and the curly haired boy next to her watches him demonstrate the correct position with more than necessary diligence, turning the same scarlet as the girl when Yuri catches him at it.

He needn't have worried; Yuri has long outgrown his repulsion over such things and besides, whenever he dances a few steps to show a child how something is to be done, the whole class pauses and stares at him with intent, eager eyes and the boy would hardly have been noticeable had he been less shamed about it.

There had been a girl, a few years ahead of him in school, who had had a similarly devastating effect. A goddess in pink pointe shoes, the boys in his class had argued bitterly over who would dance with her when they were old enough, as serious as if the casting director's choice would rest on the outcome of their squabble.

 _It will be me_ , Yuri had promised himself, watching her spin across the stage as if it was easy for her, as if she could have done it forever.

He had cried for two nights when her partner dropped her during a rehearsal, breaking her ankle so badly that she would never dance again - but by the time he danced his first duet, he had forgotten her as well.

He decides that he likes the sensation of their eyes fixed on him when he dances, their adoration is so strong there is almost a heat to it; he can nearly feel it, pulsing warmly against his sweating skin. Not quite as good as a real audience - they are only children after all - but it is a pleasure still.

He is glad he took the risk of working with the younger ones, glad to remember Loda and his little goddess who wore her pointe shoes so well. Most of all he is glad to be where they were, once.

The blonde girl – _certainly her name must be Crystal, it is the sort of name a girl like that would have -_ manages to bring her arms into fourth position without flicking her hair about and earns herself a second smile. This time, when she smiles back, there are two spots of colour high in her cheeks.

 _Just the thing Miss McKenzie warned me not to encourage_ , he thinks, not entirely without guilt, _she is worried I will break their little hearts_.

But Yuri is too kind to break anybody's heart and besides, he knows better than Miss McKenzie what it will take to do so.

He wonders what Loda Halama is doing these days. Certainly not dancing, not after all these years.

He smiles at Crystal a third time and grins internally when the two spots of colour grow into a full fledged blush. He will enjoy himself, whilst he is here.

It will not be for much longer, after all.

 


End file.
